Z390 aorus xtreme waterforce review in Spanish (full analysis)

We are delighted to bring you the review of the unmatched new Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce, a Z390 chipset motherboard that has brutal performance. It starts with an impressive exterior design that includes a complete block of liquid cooling that encompasses VRM and Chipset with RGB lighting, along with CNVi Wi-Fi connectivity and top 10 Gigabit Ethernet. In addition, it includes Thunderbolt 3, SLI and Crossfire and support for up to 128 GB of RAM.

The price of this board is astronomical, but there is nothing similar on the market that assembles a Z390 chipset with such brutal benefits. Wanting to see what this beast offers us? Well go ahead.

We are grateful to AORUS for trusting us by transferring this product to us for analysis.

Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce technical features

Unboxing and design

A plate with similar features and exclusivity must bring a box to match the circumstances, and indeed so. And not only will we have a large, thick cardboard box, but it will also be placed inside a briefcase-style box with an elegant matt black design and a large AORUS symbol on its RGB exterior.

The color images to open your mouth do not wait, to present us this impressive Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce, along with the following elements that we find inside:

Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce motherboard Wifi antennas Cable set SATACables SLICons to organize cablingMixed hardware for installation of M.2 SSDsExtenders for the control panelManual, quick guide and CD with driversBlock and its accessories for installation.

All this comes perfectly insulated and well stored with respect to the plate so as not to damage it. Likewise, the plate itself comes in a thick antistatic bag. Aorus has had the detail of including with the purchase pack Norton Internet Security software in OEM version, cFosSpeed and Xplit Gamecaster + Broadcaster with a 12-month license. For this price that less than a lifetime license… We also have a Hub that allows us to connect up to 8 extra fans on the board.

Without a doubt it is one of the most beautiful plates to which we have had access, and much more when we see it in all its splendor with the complete RGB lighting that it has. Be careful with the chassis that we have because in this case we are facing a motherboard with an E-ATX form factor with a size of 305 mm high by 271 mm wide, being even wider than many of those that install Chipset X299 and X399.

Despite its price and appearance, we are facing a board that mounts an Intel Z390 Express chipset. It is a great detail to find such impressive boards for LGA 1151 socket processors and more accessible by most users who want to overclock with the best performing gaming processors.

If we turn this Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce and we see its back, we find a complete nanocarbon casing that protects every set consisting of PCB and cooling system. Much needed on this motherboard due to the large number of elements that we have on it and the large amount of hardware that we hope to mount on it. further

In all the right side area (with the plate seen from the front) we have installed a Gigabyte RGB Fusion LED lighting system, which is going to be complemented with the one that we will have throughout the cooling block and I / O panel.

As impressive as the look is the VRM that mounts this motherboard. We have no less than 16 power phases with 60A IR PowIRstage MOSFET chokes that are specifically designed to smoothly handle overclocking frequencies above 5 GHz.

Because surely the processor we assemble will be an 8th or 9th generation Intel like the new i9-9900K that support strong overlocks. In the same way we will have compatibility with all the CPUs that are currently mounted on the LGA 1151 socket, although nobody in their right mind would mount a Celeron or a Pentium G.

This VRM comes complete with two 8-pin power connectors in addition to the traditional 24-pin ATX. We will also have a 6-pin PCIe connector to provide extra power to these slots. AORUS has done an amazing engineering job with the PCB of this Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce. You have separated the main power into two copper layers to have the component data signal lanes in two other independent layers.

As it could not be otherwise, one of the novelties that we should pay the most attention to is the spectacular liquid cooling block that runs through the entire VRM and chipset. It is an All-In-One system composed of a dissipation block built in copper and aluminum that will be manageable from the brand's software, in addition to its incredible RGB Fusion LED lighting system made up of 51 lamps. This block in conjunction with the M.2 heatsinks weighs a whopping 3.1 Kg.

Another novelty that this Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce implements is the presence of four DIMM DDR4 slots reinforced with steel plates, although in this case we will have a capacity for each slot of no less than 32 GB, being able to install a total of 128 GB of 4400 MHz Dual Channel ECC and non-ECC RAM memory with support for XMP profile. On top of these slots we have, in addition to a button to start, we have another to put the board in overclock mode, and thus take better advantage of the Z390 and the LANES of the CPU.

Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce includes a lot of connectivity that we will have to see little by little. We start with three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots and another two PCI-Express 3.0 x1 slots. In the three full-size we will have steel reinforcement both on the front and on the side to support the weight of the colossal Nvidia RTX. It also supports Nvidia SLI 2-way (or NVLink) and also AMD Crossfire 2/3-way.

The first slot works at x16 and will be the one indicated for connecting individual graphics cards. The second slot works at x8 and shares a bus with the previous one, this way if we create a double connection in them, both will work at x8. Finally, the third slot works at x4 and shares a bus with one of the M.2 slots, the M2P, in which case, it will work at x2 if this slot is occupied by a PCIe SSD. We see that despite being an impressive board, we will have the limitations of a Z390 chipset, this is not salvageable due to hardware limitations.

Directly we are going to see the possibilities that we will have in terms of storage in this Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce. We have a total of 6 SATA III connectors at 6 Gbps and also three M.2 slots capable of working in PCIe x4 mode and two of them also in SATA. All of these slots are under heat dissipation pads that are part of the block that completely runs through the board. To access them we will only have to remove the fixing screw at the end of each heatsink and lift them to install the unit.

The first available M2M drive supports 2242/2260/2280/22110 configurations in both SATA and PCIe x4 connection. The second M.2 M2A drive supports 2260/2280/22110 configurations also in SATA and PCIe. Finally, the third M.2 M2P slot supports configurations up to 2280 and only in PCIe x4 mode. In all cases we can configure a storage system with RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10.

In addition, we will have an extra M.2 slot that is present in many of the current high-end boards that will be intended for the installation of an Intel CNVi Wireless chip that this time we do have it installed. This chip provides us with wireless connectivity 802.11ac Wave2 in 2 × 2 reaching a maximum of 1.73 Gbps. On the rear panel we will have the two corresponding connectors for the AORUS antennas that will extend our range.

Additionally, Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce is one of the few motherboards on the market to include 10Gbps Ethernet connectivity. In this case we have installed an AQUANTIA AQC107 Chip with 10 Base-T link of 10 gigabit per second, oriented to high speed connections for e-sport and LAN networks. We also have another normal Intel GbE chip for a second LAN connection, which can be the Internet, for example. Without a doubt, impressive credentials are presented to us.

We continue with the sound section, in which we find a high-end Realtek ALC1220-VB chip for digital audio with S / PDIF digital output and Hi-Fi 7.1 capability. The ESS SABER 9018K2M DAC is also very high end, with independent chips for the left and right channel. We end the section with an OPA1622 amplifier and Nichicon Fine Gold capacitors

With all this hardware on our board, we will have a sound quality of the best level that current boards install, with Anti-pop filter, dynamic impedance and WIMA capacitors. You just need to play quality content to enjoy all these technical advantages.

We now turn to see the rear I / O panel of the Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce to connect more deeply what we have in hand, and you will not be disappointed.

2x WiFi antenna connectors 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports on USB Type-C Gen2 4x USB 3.1 Gen22x USB 3.1 Gen12x USB 2.01x HDMI2x RJ455x 3.5mm audio jack and microS / PDIF for digital audio

Of course highlight the presence of the two Thunderbolt 3 ports compatible with DisplayPort and Daisy-chain to connect up to two 4K monitors on them and speeds of up to 40 Gb / s

Other Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce internal connectivity includes:

1 TPM connector 2 addressable RGB headers 2 headers for RGB lighting bands Reset, power and clear CMOS buttons 8 headers for PWM fans expandable to 1610 temperature sensors

We say expandable to 16 fans because a Switch with 8 extra outputs is also included and can also be managed by Smart Fan 5.

After this bundle of specifications, which one is more bizarre, let's go to see the tests that we have subjected the Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce.

testing bench

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce
Base plate:	Intel Core i7-8700K
Memory:	Corsair Dominator RGB 32 GB @ 3600 MHz
Heatsink	Corsair H100i V2
HDD	Kingston KC500 480GB
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti
Power supply	Corsair RM1000X

BIOS

With a renewed BIOS and a very attractive design, the company presents this motherboard. It allows us to perform a very fast overclock, one-click monitoring and a very intuitive way to lose the fear of BIOS. Very good work!

Overclocking and temperatures

We are facing one of the best Z390 motherboards if not the best. We have managed to get the i7-8700k up to 5.2 GHz stable 24/7 with a voltage of 1.41 v with its 6 cores and 12 threads. We find it a super interesting option for those users who are looking for quality / price.

The marked temperatures are during 12 hours of stress with the processor in stock and PRIME95 in its long stress program. The zone of the feeding phases reaches up to 40 ºC. It shows when we go through water a very good processor, with a delid and cooled by water. Great Gigabyte job!

Final words and conclusion about Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce

Gigabyte has set out to launch the most powerful and most expensive motherboard in the Z390 chipset. An animated 16-phase supply, a groundbreaking design, great RGB lighting, a monoblock that is responsible for cooling the VRM, chipset and processor with a simple liquid cooling kit that we have to purchase separately.

One of the great advantages of buying an Aorus board, is that they usually have a very good integrated sound card. Compatible with high-impedance headphones, crystal clear sound and highly customizable software.

We recommend reading the best motherboards on the market

At the performance level, we have been able to take full advantage of our i7-8700k up to 5.2 GHz. It is true, that it is a black leg and that it has a DELID to further improve its temperatures. We haven't spent 40 degrees stressing the processor for 12 hours.

Its price is its great handicap: 1079 euros. We understand that when assembling a custom liquid cooling monoblock and the best components on the market it is more expensive than normal. But that a consumer motherboard reaches this animated price, we are very surprised. Very little you can buy this wonder. What do you think about the Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce ?

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ DESIGN	- HIGHEST PRICE
+ CUSTOM MONOBLOCK
+ QUALITY OF THE COMPONENTS
+ OVERCLOCKING
+ SOUND AND IMPROVED CONNECTIVITY